Economist Intelligence Unit
The Economist Intelligence Unit publishes another report prepared for corporate movers. The Summary of the Liveability Ranking and Overview assesses which cities around the world provide the best or worst living conditions. It looks at 30 qualitative and quantitative factors across five categories: stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education and infrastructure for 140 cities globally. Like Mercer’s study, the survey originated as a means of testing whether companies needed to assign a hardship allowance as part of expat relocation packages. If you are a corporate employee, you may want to ask your relocation services department for a copy. If you are not, you can get a copy of The Economist Summary of the Liveability Ranking and Overview here. You will have to register to download the report. This study’s top 10 cities were: Melbourne, Australia; Vienna, Austria; Vancouver, Canada; Toronto, Canada; Calgary, Canada; Adelaide, Australia; Sydney, Australia; Helsinki, Finland; Perth, Australia; and, Auckland, New Zealand.
Numbeo Quality of Life Index for 2013
If you are not a corporate or government employee and are a self-mover, the Numbeo Quality of Life Index for 2013 may be useful. Its quality of life index is based on seven factors: purchasing power, safety, healthcare, consumer price, property price to income, traffic commute time and pollution. It also provides quality of life rankings by both country and by city. The company claims it has the largest database of user-contributed country and city data in the world. The Numbeo Quality of Life Index by city is published annually. As a an aggregator of user-generated data, its top 10 cities take on a bit different look than either Mercer or the Economist Intelligence Unit: Zurich, Switzerland; Canberra, Australia; Adelaide, Australia; Berlin, Germany; Munich, Germany; Edmonton, Canada; Calgary, Canada; Hamburg, Germany; Austin, Texas; and, Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Numbeo also produces a Quality of Life Index by country, which measures 67 countries. Its top 10 included: Switzerland, Germany, United States, Sweden, Canada, United Arab Emirates, Denmark, Norway, Qatar and Austria.
OECD Better Life Index
Another very accessible study for self-movers is the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) Better Ife Index, which was created in 2011. The biggest limitation of this study is that it reports only on the OECD’s 34 member nations. The OECD Better Life Index is based on 11 factors: housing, income, jobs, community, education, environment, civic engagement, health, life satisfaction, safety and work/life balance. The Better Life Index is very consumer-friendly because it allows you to weight each factor to produce your own personal quality of life index. It differs from the other studies because it ranks just countries and is limited to a small number of countries. The OECD’s most recent overall top 10 rankings were: Australia, Sweden, Canada, Norway, Switzerland, the United States, Denmark, the Netherlands, Iceland and the United Kingdom.
Studies can be useful tools to help you evaluate the quality of life in your country and city of choice, but each study to some degree has limitations. The Mercer and Economist Intelligence Unit reports are excellent if you are a corporate mover, have access to the full range of factors that went into the final report and have access to the data without charge. If you are a self-mover, the user-based information from Numbeo and the customization capabilities of the OECD’s Better Life Index both provide strong benefits, including transparency as well as no cost. But we believe the best quality of life index is the one you determine, based on the factors you value in the order of importance that is most meaningful to you.